For new professionals entering the field of histology, the days of making reagents are quickly becoming a thing of the past. I find this shift may be problematic, primarily because some of the art that is characteristic of technical histology is lost. One of my personal challenges when working with students is helping them to troubleshoot staining anomalies. When stains are made by the laboratory, the team learns from hands on experience what happens when a component is missing or inappropriately added to the mixture. These changes can make subtle alterations in the stained slides, which the histology team is expected to correct. Ultimately, newer histology teams need to be able to recognize and troubleshoot subtle staining issues that can be easily corrected, without having the experience of making reagents and the lessons learned in that process.
